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Misunderstood
Are you the kind of person who cheers for the underdog? Or in this case, under-gargoyle, homunculus, or orc? When the action's at its fullest, are you peering past the hero or heroine, looking to see what the supporting cast is up to? If so, this is the anthology for you! From a feline familiar who's got to fill his boss's shoes to a minotaur who is forced to fight to entertain humans, and trolls who are completely out of control, Misunderstood is twenty-six tales of the characters who usually stand on the sidelines supporting either the derring-do or dastardly deeds of the main character. You've read their tantalizing few lines in popular fiction. Now read their stories, and hopefully they will no longer be --misunderstood.
- GenresShort Stories
246 pages, Paperback
First published October 31, 2015
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January 2, 2016
This is another anthology I enjoyed through the generosity of my friend Andrew M. Seddon, who has a story included, and who gifted me with a no-strings-attached copy. Co-editor Kyle (who's also a co-author of one of the stories here) is also the editor of another anthology I recently read, Tails From the Front Lines. Most of the 26 stories included here were apparently written for this collection; six are reprints, but even four of those were first published in 2014-15. Nina Kiriki Hoffman is represented by a selection from 1999, and the oldest is Brenda W. Clough's "To Serve a Prince," published in 1995. Besides Seddon, Kyle and Hoffman, Jody Lynn Nye is the only author represented that I'd definitely heard of before (though I don't believe I'd read anything by Hoffman before.
The Goodreads description is taken from the cover copy, which establishes that the intended unifying theme here is to depict types of characters as protagonists who aren't usually in that role (and, sometimes, to incorporate a revisionist view of their traits and possibilities). Most of the tales are set in fantasy worlds, or sometimes this world with the premise that creatures of fantasy actually inhabit it. Three, though, are science fiction. "Night of the Skaggit," taken from Andrew Seddon's recent collection The Deathcats of Asa'ican and Other Tales of a Space Vet (and one of the best stories in the book) has a human main character, but a shape-shifting alien plays a prominent role. DeAnna Knippling's "Attack on Pirion," is less successful, IMO; it features completely non-human aliens at war with humans as the viewpoint characters, but it simply flips the "good Us vs. evil, icky Them" perspective of simplistic SF. (It also suffers from inconsistent details, and doesn't make clear exactly what's going on at the end. It could be questioned whether Jason Lairamore's "The Rat Ship," really fits the anthology's theme, but it has a very thought-provoking premise.
All of the SF stories are serious in tone; several of the fantasy stories, however, are humorous, though they may mix serious points in with their humor. Edward Ahern's "The Troll Child," is perhaps the most outstanding of these; the premise isn't one that can really be taken seriously, but if you just go with the flow, it's a scream. (And you know that cell phone use has really become ubiquitous when a troll has one....) Other stories are serious, and often use fantasy elements to make points about real life; some of these are heart-breaking, and D.J. Tyrer's "There's No 'I' in Homunculus" is very grim. Actual folklore plays a part in some stories. A couple of selections, Cael Jacobs' "The Sundering of Hyvus" and Carol Hightshoe's "A Story of Inyodo" (which draws on Japanese myth) are deliberately written with the flavor of folktales. Besides the two favorites already mentioned, the stories I consider the best are Hoffman's "How I Came to Marry a Herpetologist" and Douglas A Sanburn's "Unfamiliar Situation," but a number of these are first-rate. A few don't work as well as others. "The Truth in Her Lies," by Kyle and J. A. Campbell, is okay as far as it goes, but even though it isn't said to be a novel excerpt, it reads like one; it begins in the middle of the action, leaves the main action completely unresolved, and has a complicated situation and large cast of characters that require more development. The real-life Prince Charles --yes, that Prince Charles!-- is the protagonist of Clough's story; this comes across as rather weird (and not in a good way), and some of the 20-year-old details are dated.
There's no explicit sex or much reference to sex at all here, and most of the stories don't have bad language, or very little. There are two or three exceptions; Knippling's story has the worst language, and it doesn't serve any function of "realism" there; it's hardly realistic to think a completely non-human race would adopt human profanities and obscenities.
Short bio-critical write-ups on the authors, which accompany each story, enhance the value of the collection, and help to make the writers more than just unfamiliar names. Overall, this is a sampler of some rewarding genre work, and would probably be enjoyed by most fans.
The Goodreads description is taken from the cover copy, which establishes that the intended unifying theme here is to depict types of characters as protagonists who aren't usually in that role (and, sometimes, to incorporate a revisionist view of their traits and possibilities). Most of the tales are set in fantasy worlds, or sometimes this world with the premise that creatures of fantasy actually inhabit it. Three, though, are science fiction. "Night of the Skaggit," taken from Andrew Seddon's recent collection The Deathcats of Asa'ican and Other Tales of a Space Vet (and one of the best stories in the book) has a human main character, but a shape-shifting alien plays a prominent role. DeAnna Knippling's "Attack on Pirion," is less successful, IMO; it features completely non-human aliens at war with humans as the viewpoint characters, but it simply flips the "good Us vs. evil, icky Them" perspective of simplistic SF. (It also suffers from inconsistent details, and doesn't make clear exactly what's going on at the end. It could be questioned whether Jason Lairamore's "The Rat Ship," really fits the anthology's theme, but it has a very thought-provoking premise.
All of the SF stories are serious in tone; several of the fantasy stories, however, are humorous, though they may mix serious points in with their humor. Edward Ahern's "The Troll Child," is perhaps the most outstanding of these; the premise isn't one that can really be taken seriously, but if you just go with the flow, it's a scream. (And you know that cell phone use has really become ubiquitous when a troll has one....) Other stories are serious, and often use fantasy elements to make points about real life; some of these are heart-breaking, and D.J. Tyrer's "There's No 'I' in Homunculus" is very grim. Actual folklore plays a part in some stories. A couple of selections, Cael Jacobs' "The Sundering of Hyvus" and Carol Hightshoe's "A Story of Inyodo" (which draws on Japanese myth) are deliberately written with the flavor of folktales. Besides the two favorites already mentioned, the stories I consider the best are Hoffman's "How I Came to Marry a Herpetologist" and Douglas A Sanburn's "Unfamiliar Situation," but a number of these are first-rate. A few don't work as well as others. "The Truth in Her Lies," by Kyle and J. A. Campbell, is okay as far as it goes, but even though it isn't said to be a novel excerpt, it reads like one; it begins in the middle of the action, leaves the main action completely unresolved, and has a complicated situation and large cast of characters that require more development. The real-life Prince Charles --yes, that Prince Charles!-- is the protagonist of Clough's story; this comes across as rather weird (and not in a good way), and some of the 20-year-old details are dated.
There's no explicit sex or much reference to sex at all here, and most of the stories don't have bad language, or very little. There are two or three exceptions; Knippling's story has the worst language, and it doesn't serve any function of "realism" there; it's hardly realistic to think a completely non-human race would adopt human profanities and obscenities.
Short bio-critical write-ups on the authors, which accompany each story, enhance the value of the collection, and help to make the writers more than just unfamiliar names. Overall, this is a sampler of some rewarding genre work, and would probably be enjoyed by most fans.
Displaying 1 of 1 review